Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
September 26, 2016
In my last letter I wrote: Two of the most deeply disliked individuals in America are running for President. There is no joy in Mudville.
It was the only reference in my letter that I could find in re-reading it twice to Hillary Clinton.
Some of my readers took umbrage with me as they were disappointed in my characterization of Hillary Clinton. To say the least, I was surprised.
It seemed to me a factual statement, not a judgement. Tonight, at a party, I mentioned this to Tiffany Martin Hamilton, the first Democratic woman to be Mayor of Hudson. She too was surprised it would bring umbrage.
I am voting for Hillary Clinton for President. She is the most qualified person to be President. By the time this over, I will probably have given Hillary Clinton’s campaign more money than I have for any other candidate in my life because the idea of a Trump Presidency scares the hell out of me.
That does not change the fact that one of the challenges of this campaign is that a significant number of Americans dislike her; it is one of the challenges for those of us who support her to help her overcome.
One of my smartest friends, sighed one day to me: there is no situation the Clintons can’t make worse. [He was and is a Clinton supporter.] And it has been demonstrated time and again. I confess that the handling of her pneumonia drove me to distraction.
The reality is that those of us who support her must help address the concerns over her apparent lack of transparency and encourage her campaign to do better. It is infuriating to me because she is so qualified and has managed to garner a visceral dislike that is beyond reason.
One of my closest friends, a very liberal Democrat, will not vote for her. He lives in New York and, if he lived in a swing state, would vote for her. But because he lives in New York, a state he doesn’t consider a swing state, he will vote Libertarian because he has a visceral dislike of Hillary Clinton.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the problems we must honestly face to help Hillary Clinton become the next President.
This race should not even be close. But it is because for two decades the Republican Party has demonized both Bill and Hillary Clinton and have waged an effective campaign to discredit them. And they have not always helped themselves.
It is so frustrating to me.
At the Hudson Bed Races on Saturday [more about that in my next column], three acquaintances of mine are making active plans to leave the country if Trump wins.
These are people who are taking concrete steps to leave, putting together an action plan and putting in place the steps in that action plan to make it happen.
It makes me crazy that anyone would be thinking this way over a Presidential election but we are. It feels like we have reached a desperate moment in America’s history.
A few minutes ago I watched a video of college students being asked fundamental questions of American history which most of them couldn’t. They could answer all the questions about popular culture. It is a sad fact that has been realized in a number of different studies of college students and by my own experience in teaching.
This may be the closest to a rant I will do.
Please understand I am frustrated and I am frightened. A Trump Presidency will be a catastrophe for this country. The Republican Party I grew up with and respected is unrecognizable and has lost all the respect I had for it once it made Trump its candidate.
We are at once of the most critical moments in our Democracy and there are those who say the future of our Democracy may be decided by this election.
Tags:Claverack, Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton's pneumonia, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Hudson Bed Races, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Republican Party, The Donald, Tiffany Martin Hamilton, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
September 9, 2016
Three days of grey clouds portended but did not produce rain. Tonight, after seeing Woody Allen’s “Café Society,” I left the theater to be greeted by a soft rain falling, driving home over glistening roads.
Mixed reports had me slightly ambivalent about seeing “Café Society.” Some said it was good. Some said it wasn’t. One wag commented, “It isn’t the worst Woody Allen film.” No, it definitely wasn’t. It wasn’t “Annie Hall” or “Manhattan” or “Bullets Over Broadway.” It was a slightly overlong, mostly charming view of a family in the late 1930’s in New York and Hollywood. As usual, there was a pantheon of stars giving good performances including Jesse Eisenberg, Steve Carrell, Blake Lively [the first time I have liked her], Parker Posey, Corey Stoll and Kristen Stewart.
Mostly it looked beautiful and poignant and timeless and full of love gone round the wrong corner.
It was the second day of class and we’re all still alive and at least all my students seemed moderately engaged, except, perhaps, for the young woman who seemed to be fighting off falling asleep. When I did a survey, all but three of my students are working jobs as well as attending school. Some of them, many of them, have full time jobs as well as being full time students. No wonder they sometimes yawn.
Out there in the world, beyond my quiet Creekside world, the strident tone of politics continues.
Last night, Matt Lauer moderated interviews, not at the same time, of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, supposedly about their views on issues related to national security.
Lauer, who, once upon a time I liked, devoted a third of Clinton’s half-hour to her email server issues. Then, according to the news reports, didn’t handle the rest of the interview well.
It is the general consensus of the press that Lauer screwed up; was unprepared and unable to stand up to Donald Trump when he repeated he had been against the Iraq War when, in fact, he is on record of supporting it in 2002.
Alas, no TODAY for me going forward. Shame on NBC for blowing this opportunity. Shame on Matt Lauer for blowing his opportunity.
Depending on who you listen to, Trump is beating Clinton or Clinton is beating Trump. The polls are rocky right now. There are only 60 or 61 days left to the election. While I can’t conceive of it, there is a possibility Donald Trump will be President.
Libertarian Presidential nominee Gary Johnson, who has been getting close enough in the polls that he might be included in the debates, made a major gaffe the other day when he had no knowledge of Aleppo. “What is Aleppo?”
Aleppo is the epicenter of the catastrophe that is Syria, where it has been reported Assad’s forces used chlorine gas on citizens. There are frightful images of Syrian civilians needing oxygen. Chlorine gas was the scourge of the WWI and now it is back in Syria.
In news of the future, Google and Chipotle are experimenting at UVA with drone delivery of burritos. Buzzing in the sky will become normal…
In other news from the present, Apple’s stock was down 3% today after the announcement of the iPhone 7. The no jack situation has many people [and investors] spooked. Me too. My iPhone 5s will not connect, for whatever reason, wirelessly with my speakers. Everything else, easy peasy, but not from my phone. And, in the end, I might succumb to the iPhone 7 Plus but might end up choosing the iPhone 6 Plus because it has a jack. I have been waiting for the iPhone 7 and feel just a little cheated. Much thought ahead.
Fifteen years ago tomorrow, my now ex-partner and I made an offer on the cottage, from where I write this. Which means that two days later we will have the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11.
It is an anniversary that always brings me back to my experience of horror on a scale I had never known. It takes me to the corner of West Broadway and Spring Street, looking at the Towers burning and feeling stunned and knowing at that moment there was nowhere to turn. We had just turned a page in history.
Tags:9/11, Aleppo, Blake Lively, Cafe Society, Chlorine Gas, Claverack, Columbia Greene Community College, Corey Stoll, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, iPhone 7, iPhone7, Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matt Lauer, New York, Parker Posey, Steve Carrell, The Donald, TODAY, Woody Allen
Posted in 2016 Election, 9/11, Claverack, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Social Commentary, Syria, Television, Trump, Uncategorized, World War I commentary | Leave a Comment »
September 6, 2016
It is evening. The floodlights illuminate the creek and we are losing daylight at the rate of about two minutes a day. A month ago it would not have been this dark. It is Labor Day, the unofficial official end of summer. We start with Memorial Day and we end with Labor Day. And Labor Day is ending as I sit here tapping out words on my laptop.
Tomorrow I start teaching and I have now pushed past my anxiety and am looking forward to the moment when I walk into class. Oh, okay, ask me in the morning. I am sure I will have anxiety in the morning but I will do it. I’ve agreed to do it so therefore I must do it.
I have spent most of my time this weekend at home, secluded in the cottage, enjoying my home and being alone, having a good time with myself. Yesterday, though, I went out to Larry Divney’s guest house, located a couple of miles from his own home. There was a great and grand barbeque which included gluten free things, as that is what I am working to do. Larry knows and so he took care of it, as is the way with Larry.
During this weekend, I have not paid particular attention to the world. What is going on right now is redundant. Syria continues to be a catastrophe. Trump and Hillary continue their march across the nation, each besmirched by their own failings. I will vote for Hillary because the idea of a Trump Presidency sends me to thoughts of expatriate life. While flawed, deeply flawed, she is at least sane and not bombastic. Could neither party come up with less flawed candidates? Apparently not, because this is what we are dealing with…
We are also dealing with the first real beginnings of climate change. Towns like Norfolk, VA are experiencing flooding that threatens them. They are not the only ones. It has, I am afraid, begun.
The Governor of Texas vetoed a bill to give assistance to the mentally ill based, at least in part, on a group of Scientologists who told him mental illness was a falsehood. Texas gets the Stupid Award of the week. Mental illness is not false; it does exist. It is a plague upon the land and can we not find a place to help these poor souls? Not in Texas.
The night has descended. I alleviate it with my floodlights but it is here. The fall is arriving. And while I look forward to the fall and winter with Thanksgiving and Christmas, I will miss this soft summer and its delights.
Tags:Claverack, Donald Trump, Governor of Texas vetoes mentai health bill, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Hudson River, Larry Divney, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Norfolk, Red Dot, Texas, The Donald, Virgina
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Education, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
September 3, 2016
As I was sitting on the deck, there came a slight chill in the air, a harbinger of times to come. It is still a luxurious green outside the window but it was getting just a little chill and so I returned to the dining room table to write this.
It occurred to me that working on these letters has contributed to my happiness over the years, particularly since I began to have more time at the cottage, a chance to collect my thoughts and ruminate upon the world in which we live.
It has been a good day. Waking early, I journaled for a bit, read the daily summary of the news in the NY Times, drank coffee and then went down to the eye doctor. I have an aggressive cataract in my right eye that must be dealt with. Cold comfort that they tell me it is not age related. The surgery needs to be done. I am nervous and it is now scheduled for November 9th. It has been a hindrance of late so I am glad it will be handled.
From there I treated myself to lunch at Ca’Mea while reading “The Romanovs,” a NY Times best seller about the dynasty that ruled Russia for 300 plus years and came to a sad end in a room in the Ipatiev House in Ekaterinburg in 1918, the last Tsar and his family and their retainers shot to death.
While I knew something of the end of the Romanov Era as I had studied Tolstoy, Chekov and others of that “Silver Age” I have known very little of the earlier Romanovs. They had some particularly gruesome ways of killing their rivals.
Returning home, I napped a bit and then went out to the deck to do some prep work for my class. I am now very much looking forward to it.
Touching in on the news of the day, I can only find myself smiling over the absurdity of it all. One of Hillary Clinton’s laptops, chock-a-block with emails was lost in the US Mail. I roll my eyes.
In what should come as NO surprise, Hispanics really, really don’t like Donald Trump according to America’s Voice’s poll, a pro-immigration group that did a large poll among Hispanics. He is doing dramatically worse than Mitt Romney. Hispanic Republicans are deserting Trump, particularly after his immigration speech in Arizona.
Brazil has ousted its President. Dilma Rousseff is gone and “Brazil has turned a page,” according to its new President. For the Brazilian people, let us hope so.
Long ago, I was getting on a flight in Atlanta, going God knows where but Mother Theresa and some of her nuns were getting on the flight with me. I saw her walk by, followed by her coterie. It was before I went to India.
She is about to be a saint though when I was in India there were many who found her less than saintly. I have a friend in India, a Beverly Hills Jew who is now a sadhu, who worked with the Gandhi’s when they were in power. He railed against Mother Theresa, claiming she was the ultimate “fixer” in Calcutta, now Kolkata. He despised her and there are those in India who are devoting their lives to dispelling what they call the myth of Mother Theresa. I don’t know the truth.
It is dark now. The floodlights have been turned on so I can see the creek. I have lights on the front of the house, year round that I often light. My former neighbor, Karen Fonda, once called me to tell me how happy seeing the lights made her. When I turn them on, I think of her. She is now in assisted living, sinking into the hell that is Alzheimer’s.
Hurricane Hermine is moving out of Florida and into the Carolinas. Yesterday, I phoned my sister who lives in Florida to see how she was doing. Okay, a few power outages but generally well. While New York City was having rain today, my part of the Hudson Valley was sunny and cheerful.
Roger Ailes, recently ousted as Tsar of Fox News, is now advising Donald Trump. No one seems to be paying much attention to this. Ailes has been accused by many women of having made inappropriate sexual suggestions to them. He was finally toppled when Megyn Kelly, not well liked by Trump, but a Fox News star, met with the legal team investigating Ailes and corroborated the stories.
No one seems to care.
Well, I think it’s a wise move on Trump’s part as Ailes created the wild conservative movement we now have in America. But unwise in that Ailes is discredited by many at this moment. Interesting to see how this serpentine relationship works itself out.
Tags:Brazil, Calcutta, Claverack, Delhi, Dilma Rousseff, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hurricane Hermine, Kolkata, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Megyn Kelly, Mother Theresa, New York, Pope Francis, Roger Ailes, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political Commentary, Politics, Pope Francis, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 26, 2016
It has been a grey and gloomy day in Claverack, always threatening to rain but not managing it. Tomorrow is also supposed to be this way though with more chance of rain. I was out for a couple of meetings and errands and have been home since then working on a few projects, mostly getting ready to teach Public Speaking in the Fall at Columbia Greene Community College.
It is dark earlier now. It is not yet 7:15 and the light is leaving quickly. Behind me is the thrum of the dishwasher; otherwise there is silence. I told a friend I woke up happy, which I did.
As I lived my quiet day, rescuers in Italy searched the ruins left by a lethal earthquake, looking for survivors as the clock ticks the chances away. Aftershocks rattled them as they searched. At least 250 are dead and another 350+ injured. A Polish immigrant living in the town of Amatrice, said she will remember until she dies “the evil murmur of moving walls.”
Those who have debilitating allergies often carry EpiPens with them, a now common safety device. Mylan, the company that makes them, has raised the price dramatically as a generic alternative will become available in the not too distant future. Apparently, this is not unusual for drug companies to wring the last round of profits from a medicine in the months before a generic alternative becomes available.
It happened to me, a few years ago. Something I was taking suddenly skyrocketed in price and I had to switch to an alternative.
Nine years ago, an EpiPen cost $47, today, $284. No wonder there is an outcry. And the EpiPen, it seems, was developed by the US Department of Defense as something for soldiers in the field to use for nerve gas and then it was discovered it worked on allergies.
Congress is talking an investigation. I have friends who carry them. In the meantime, people who need them maybe are being out priced from having them.
I love nights like this. Outside the floodlights illuminate the creek. Beatrice, my ever growing banana plant, continues her climb to the ceiling. And I enjoy the tranquility of the cottage.
The Chairman of Vice Media, Shane Smith, who runs the digital behemoth that has attracted investment from Disney and Fox, says that a “digital media crisis is coming.” Yes, it is. It has been for twenty years now, growing slowly until it now has become the crisis no one can avoid. When I was, long ago and far away, working in the cable business no one in broadcasting thought of us as a menace, until we were. So with digital… It was not a menace, until it was… The crisis is here and has been from almost the moment it began but media has been an ostrich in the sand.
The political campaigns go on. I don’t pay much attention right now. Trump has accused Hillary of being a bigot. She’s done the same to him. The beat goes on. It will until it is over.
Nigel Farage, once head of UKIP and a leader in BREXIT, campaigned today with Trump, basically endorsing him for President. I am not sure that is going to mean much to Trump’s core constituency… Or maybe it will mean a lot to that constituency.
As I have been writing this, an email came in. Vidya, wife of my friend Tim Sparke, let me know he passed away yesterday afternoon. He waged a remarkable war for years against brain tumors and is now gone.
Hats off, Tim. You worked to stay for your children and your wife and you went on longer than any of us would have dreamt that you could. You would not give up. I was changed by knowing you. When I was remarkably low eleven years ago you did your best to raise my spirits and cause me to laugh.
You were a generous spirit. Since you have been sick and I have been going to church, I have been lighting a candle for you and I will again this weekend, to celebrate the wonderful moments we had together, the generosity you gave me and the spirit you were in this world.
Tags:Amatrice, Claverack, Disney, Donald Trump, EpiPen, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Italian Earthquake, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mylan, Nigel Farage, Shane Smith, The Donald, Tim Sparke, UKIP, Vice Media
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
August 8, 2016
It is a little after four in the afternoon of a perfect summer day in Claverack. It is warm but not hot; humidity is low. The creek is still and mirrors back the trees that line its bank. There is the occasional thrumming of a bird’s cry. A very soft wind blows my hair.
At 3:30 this morning the alarm went off and I woke, actually rather gracefully, stretched and began the day. The weekend had been spent with my friends Nick and Lisa, at their new house in Harwich Port on Cape Cod, about a mile or so from where Lisa’s parents had had a home, a place where she grew up and not too unlike the English fishing village where Nick had grown up before going off to Boarding School.
On the way over, I resolved to listen to no news and played CD’s, particularly enjoying one by Judy Collins. On one track there is a haunting lyric, “You thought you were the crown prince of all the wheels in Ivory Town…”
On my first day of class at the University of Minnesota, I went to my Freshman Spanish class. Marvin Reich was my TA for Spanish. The sun flowed into that room that day not unlike the way it is flowing over me tonight on the deck. At one point he looked at me. “Rubio! ¿Cómo te llamas?” Blonde one, what is your name?
I answered, “Mi nombre es Mateo.”
He asked me a couple of other simple questions and I answered him. Two years before I had been in Honduras and had done my best to speak. Marvin smiled at me.
As we left class, Marvin caught up with me and started asking me about myself. Two women arrived. They were Caroline Keith and Mahryam Daniels, both Grad TA’s in Spanish. I am not sure what happened that day but they became my friends.
There was Marvin, sometimes known as “Mo,” Caroline and Marhyam, whose father very successfully sold bathroom fixtures to contractors building all the homes that were booming up in the 1950’s and 1960’s in the Twin Cities.
All three of them were years older and yet I seemed always comfortable with them and they with me. They were the most important figures of my freshman year.
Once Caroline and I sat late into the night talking, she telling me her secrets. We all have them. She looked at me and said, “I can’t believe I am telling all of this shit to an 18 year old. But I never think of you as 18.”
It was Marvin who was our glue and at the end of my freshman year, he departed, to lead a life of adventure. I am sure he did. It’s always been my hope he found all the adventures he was looking for because even though I have looked for him, I have never found him.
He introduced me to Judy Collins, Laura Nyro, Linda Ronstadt, Joan Baez. We sat all night some nights in his apartment, talking, his small, golden dog curled at our feet, drinking coffee but really fueled by benzedrine.
It was a most amazing year and when Marvin left to find his adventures, we were all devastated and drifted apart, too shattered to cling together on life’s life raft. We pulled away from the Titanic in different boats to find our futures in other places.
And yet, I have spent this past weekend thinking of them and mourning them, all brought together by a Judy Collins lyric, which took me back, suddenly and unexpectedly, to a winter morn in Marvin’s apartment, he telling me “You must hear this…”
It has never left me. That moment has never left me. And I hope that wherever they are, they have found the lives they wanted. They were extraordinary people and I was extraordinarily blessed to have been grabbed by them and incorporated by them in their lives. For one special year…
Tags:Cape Code, Caroline Keith, Claverack, Harwich Port, Hudson, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Laura Nyro, Linda Ronstadt, Lisa Cataldo, Marhyan Daniels, Marvin Reich, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Nick Stuart
Posted in Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Life, Literature, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Music, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
August 5, 2016
It is a little after 8 pm and the sun is setting in the Hudson Valley. I have been a “prisoner” of my cottage for the last few hours as I have had my deck re-stained and I was not to go out and touch it until about now.
The trees over the creek are verdant green and the water in the creek is crystal clear. It has been a good day, in all sorts of ways. I woke up happy and I enjoy that kind of moment.
A couple of nights ago I was in distress, my lungs were congested and I was having a bit of trouble breathing. Stumbling through the medicine chest, I found and took a Mucinex and woke up the next morning with the congestion at bay, breathing again.
There is nothing like being able to breathe.
And it is hard to breathe in this current political season.
I have never in my adult life lived through such as season as this.
Anyone who reads me must understand how deeply disturbed I am that Trump is the Republican nominee for President. And the more he prances across the stage, the more concerned I am.
The New York Times did a video piece about the hatred they had witnessed while following Trump’s campaign. It was disturbing. You can view it here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/us/politics/donald-trump-supporters.html?emc=eta1&_r=0
I am at my dining room table and the sun has set and night has fallen. I am wrapped in the coziness of the cottage and am so grateful I am here.
Were I someplace else the craziness of our time might well make me mad but I can retreat for moments into the woods and believe, for a second, no harm could possibly come.
Like most of you I cannot believe the season in which we find ourselves.
This is not what I expected out of the 2016 political season. A friend of mine and I waged a friendly bet some months ago. He believed the Republican candidate would be Rubio; I went with Bush.
Both wrong. It’s Trump, who has solidified the anger of disenfranchised white Americans, who have reason to be angry. The world is passing them by…
But really? All this hate? It is a return to the realities of 19th and early 20th Century America where hatred moved from Germans, Italians, Poles, Irish, Jews…
A friend of mine who is Jewish remembers his grandmother in the early 20th Century hiding from mobs running through Lower Manhattan, screaming “Kill the Jews!”
We are on the verge of some of us screaming, “Kill the Muslims!”
Have we learned so little?
Tags:Claverack, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Muslims, Putin, Russia, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Civil Rights, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Income Inequality, IS, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
July 27, 2016
I am seated in the Red Carpet Club at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Lindberg Terminal. Lindberg, if you recall, was born in Michigan but spent his childhood in Little Falls, Minnesota. His father was a Minnesota Congressman and the state has adopted him as if he were a native son.
While not a member of the Red Carpet Club, I am a member of Amtrak’s Acela Club which gives me privileges at the Red Carpet Club.
Outside the wall of windows, the day is grey and threatening rain. My brother dropped me at the airport on his way to meetings in St. Paul and I have about an hour and a half before I board my flight back to New York.
It’s comfortable and quiet, just as this visit has been.
In the course of my time here, I have done the usual things of seeing my family and friends.
I went to the nursing home where my oldest friend, Sarah, has an aunt in the memory care unit. I went twice, bringing her flowers both times. She is 96, I think, though she identifies as being 102 or 103. Her sister, Eileen, and Eileen’s husband, John, have been gone a number of years and as I left Aunt MeMe, she asked me to say hello to them when I got back to New York. “If ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise,” from a poem by Thomas Grey seems apt here. I did not remind MeMe that they are gone. Let her live in the warmth of their presence inside her.
Yesterday, I went to the grave of my parents, unsure if I could find them. The great tree that marked my father’s grave and which my mother and I used as a marker when we visited is now long gone but I did find their graves, surprising and pleasing myself.
Standing there, I wished all of us could have done better; me as a child to their parents and they as parents to the child I was. We didn’t have an easy time of it.
When I was young, one of the greatest childhood treats I could have was the popcorn at the Pavilion at Lake Harriet, its beaches my summertime playground. So I went there, looking to see if the popcorn was as good as it had been, though my nieces warned me it was not the popcorn of old. There was no chance to make a decision; the popcorn machines were not working my last day in town.
Three was time with my brother, Joe, and his wife Deb, my other sister-in-law, Sally, who was Joe’s first wife, their two daughters, my nieces Kristin and Resa, a wine with Resa’s son, Emile. Kristin runs Clancy’s Meats in Linden Hills and is, I think, the most famous butcher in the Twin Cities. We had a couple of dinners, loud with laughter and a couple of breakfasts with Sally, full of warm chatter.
It was family time, for the most part. A good thing as family is centering as our wild world whirls around us.
As I wait in the comfort of the Red Carpet Club, CNN is on the background. Trump is speaking and the sound is so soft I cannot hear what he is saying. The banners in the lower third says he is all for getting along with Russia and that it’s “far fetched” that Russia is trying to help him.
Russians are believed to have hacked the DNC servers and then turned a treasure trove of nasty emails within the DNC over to Wikileaks who did what they do, leaked them to the press. The exposure demonstrated the contempt of some for the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. The most notable head to roll is Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who had been head of the DNC. Didn’t even get to open the convention she had planned.
The Democratic Convention got off to a rocky start but a burningly intense Bernie Sanders did much to pull the party together as did a rousing speech from Senator Cory Booker [best moment so far, to me] and a brilliant address by former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright and several 9/11 survivors.
As my brother dropped me at the airport today, we discussed how much but how little time was left between now and the elections. I sighed and said: we’ll see more mud slung in this time than we have seen in our lives.
Tags:9/11, Charles Lindberg, Clancy's Meats, Debbie Wasseman Scultz, DNC, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Lake Harriet Popcorn, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Obama, Red Carpet Club, Rosemarie Brown, Sally Tombers, Sarah Malone, Syria, The Donald, Wikileaks
Posted in 2016 Election, Education, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Putin, Russia, Social Commentary, Trump, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
June 23, 2016
It is peaceful here in Edgartown, sitting watch a sailboat motor past my window. The harbor has been filling up with more boats each week that I have been here. The moorings are filling up with boats of all kinds, small and large. Far away, just outside the harbor sits a huge motor yacht. I think it’s been here every year I have.
Tomorrow, by this time, we should know if Britain has decided to “Brexit” or not and on Friday we will see how the markets respond. It will be, I am told in newspaper reports, a slow unwinding that will take at least two years. On the way home from the bookstore, I heard a report that those in Britain who would support Trump are those who support “Brexit.” They are older, rural, and less educated. The young in Britain support remaining but have a shabby record of voting.
It is too close to call.
Jo Cox, the British MP, murdered by a man shouting “Britain first!” as he killed her while she was campaigning against “Brexit” would have turned 42 today.
Right now, led by Representative John Lewis, Democrats are staging a Congressional “sit in” to push Republicans to do something about gun control after four separate bills on the subject failed to pass, blocked by Republicans. John Lewis is an older African American who cut his chops in the civil rights era and is taking what he learned there to literally the floor of Congress. Representative Joe Kennedy, a scion of that famous clan, is also on the floor with him. As is the New York Congressman just to the south of me, Sean Maloney, an openly gay man who lives with his husband and children in Rhinebeck.
Trump is stumping. He speechified and NPR annotated. Here is the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/us/politics/donald-trump-speech-highlights.html?_r=0
Worth reading…
Mr. Trump owns a golf course in Scotland. Locals have raised a Mexican flag in view of the course to articulate their displeasure with the man. He promised 6,000 jobs. He created 150.
Since last writing, Trump has said, “You’re fired!” to Corey Lewandowski who had been his campaign manager. Apparently, Trump’s family pressured him into it.
In Pakistan, the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the assassination of Amjad Sabri, a Sufi Muslim singer, shot while heading to a performance, shortly after leaving home. The Pakistanis are outraged. The Taliban claimed his form of singing mystical Islamic poetry was “blasphemous.” Most thought it beautiful.
There are at least hundreds of thousands in the Federal Prison System. Inmate No. 47991-424 is Dennis Hastert, once Speaker of the House, now imprisoned because he lied about bank transfers that were being paid to cover up he had sexually abused a boy when he was a wrestling coach.
In disturbing news, it appears the Pentagon is not letting people know if Americans are being wounded or killed in Iraq and Syria as it would “not be helpful.” By the time the Mideast fiasco is finished we will have wasted five trillion dollars. Five trillion dollars…
There is a lavender light over the harbor, the water is peaceful. I am writing while watching the news with my friend Jeffrey as I slip into another almost bucolic evening in the Vineyard. Here it is peaceful, far from the madding world.
Tags:Amjad Sabri, Brexit, Britain, Corey Lewandowski, Dennis Hastert, Donald Trump, Edgartown, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, IS, Jo Cox, John Lewis, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Pakistan, Pentagon, Syria, The Donald
Posted in 2016 Election, Afghanistan, Civil Rights, Education, Elections, Gay, Gay Liberation, Gun Violence, IS, Life, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Mideast, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Syria, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
May 9, 2016
For the first time in a week, the sun is out and the day feels spring like. Sunlight glitters off the Hudson River as the train I’m riding heads south to the city. I have a couple of meetings this afternoon and tomorrow and then will head back north after the last one is completed.
Today, I gave the final to my class. Once they’re graded and handed in, I am finished unless I am asked back in the fall.
It was genuinely hard for me to see my students go. I will honestly miss them, even the reluctant ones among them.
They are all interesting characters and I worry about them because most of them are graduating and their academic skills are less, for the most part, of what I would expect of students finishing their second year of college.
They range in age from twenty to forty. One is a mother who missed a couple of classes because she went to her own daughter’s graduation. Another is a vet, who is back after years of service, a man of thirty something who carries weight in his soul.
They follow Facebook and spurn Twitter. Instagram and Snapchat are their social media of choice.
No one remembers anything. They turn to their phones for the answers for anything and everything. As has been posited, if you can Google, why remember it?
Today was the first time they were not nose to nose with their phones. Their phones rarely leave their hands and if they have left it behind someplace, they are a shot out the door to retrieve it.
One of my tasks was to teach them to be better, smarter consumers of media. I challenged them to go a day without media. The one who came closest, went out to a farm and stayed there and even he couldn’t make it the full twenty-four hours.
The rest of them barely made it more than a few minutes. All have a better understanding of how pervasive contemporary media is.
Anxiety is apparent when they are separated from their phones, even for relatively short periods of time. When I threatened to remove a phone from one my students as she wouldn’t stop playing with it, I was greeted by genuine terror in her face.
Most of them suffer a higher degree of nomophobia [anxiety of being separated from your smartphone] than I had expected. The older they were, the less it was, the younger they were, the higher the degree. It was both fascinating and a little unsettling to observe.
Many of them write as if they were texting and some, to my great concern, have almost no skill in writing at all. I mean zip. And while they have more than moderate intelligence, they lack the skills to communicate their intelligence in writing. One of the smartest people in my class in native intelligence is incapable of getting his thoughts on paper. How can I not worry about him?
Most of them have an appalling lack of historical knowledge in general. They live in an ever constant present, skimming the waves of history, passing over it rather than through it. And what happened centuries ago is something which seems irrelevant to them. As I’ve mentioned, if they need to know about an event, they can Google it. [A disturbing tendency I have found in myself.]
Major device for connecting to the internet? The phone, of course. Most video viewing done? On the phone. Music consumption? On the phone. Everything is on the phone.
I am convinced they came away with a better understanding of how to approach and interpret media as they experience it and I am glad I have helped make them, please dear God, better consumers of media, less open to manipulation, more discerning, more interpretive because they really weren’t when they came into class.
I am afraid that is the case of many students today, at every level.
Tags:CGCC, Claverack, Columbia Greene Community College, Google, Hudson, Hudson River, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media and Society, New York, nomophobia
Posted in Claverack, Columbia County, Columbia Greene Community College, Education, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Literature, Magna Carta, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Social Commentary, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter from Claverack 09 25 2016 A bit of a rant…
September 26, 2016In my last letter I wrote: Two of the most deeply disliked individuals in America are running for President. There is no joy in Mudville.
It was the only reference in my letter that I could find in re-reading it twice to Hillary Clinton.
Some of my readers took umbrage with me as they were disappointed in my characterization of Hillary Clinton. To say the least, I was surprised.
It seemed to me a factual statement, not a judgement. Tonight, at a party, I mentioned this to Tiffany Martin Hamilton, the first Democratic woman to be Mayor of Hudson. She too was surprised it would bring umbrage.
I am voting for Hillary Clinton for President. She is the most qualified person to be President. By the time this over, I will probably have given Hillary Clinton’s campaign more money than I have for any other candidate in my life because the idea of a Trump Presidency scares the hell out of me.
That does not change the fact that one of the challenges of this campaign is that a significant number of Americans dislike her; it is one of the challenges for those of us who support her to help her overcome.
One of my smartest friends, sighed one day to me: there is no situation the Clintons can’t make worse. [He was and is a Clinton supporter.] And it has been demonstrated time and again. I confess that the handling of her pneumonia drove me to distraction.
The reality is that those of us who support her must help address the concerns over her apparent lack of transparency and encourage her campaign to do better. It is infuriating to me because she is so qualified and has managed to garner a visceral dislike that is beyond reason.
One of my closest friends, a very liberal Democrat, will not vote for her. He lives in New York and, if he lived in a swing state, would vote for her. But because he lives in New York, a state he doesn’t consider a swing state, he will vote Libertarian because he has a visceral dislike of Hillary Clinton.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the problems we must honestly face to help Hillary Clinton become the next President.
This race should not even be close. But it is because for two decades the Republican Party has demonized both Bill and Hillary Clinton and have waged an effective campaign to discredit them. And they have not always helped themselves.
It is so frustrating to me.
At the Hudson Bed Races on Saturday [more about that in my next column], three acquaintances of mine are making active plans to leave the country if Trump wins.
These are people who are taking concrete steps to leave, putting together an action plan and putting in place the steps in that action plan to make it happen.
It makes me crazy that anyone would be thinking this way over a Presidential election but we are. It feels like we have reached a desperate moment in America’s history.
A few minutes ago I watched a video of college students being asked fundamental questions of American history which most of them couldn’t. They could answer all the questions about popular culture. It is a sad fact that has been realized in a number of different studies of college students and by my own experience in teaching.
This may be the closest to a rant I will do.
Please understand I am frustrated and I am frightened. A Trump Presidency will be a catastrophe for this country. The Republican Party I grew up with and respected is unrecognizable and has lost all the respect I had for it once it made Trump its candidate.
We are at once of the most critical moments in our Democracy and there are those who say the future of our Democracy may be decided by this election.
Tags:Claverack, Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton's pneumonia, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Hudson Bed Races, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Republican Party, The Donald, Tiffany Martin Hamilton, Trump
Posted in 2016 Election, Claverack, Columbia County, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Hillary Clinton, Hollywood, Hudson New York, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »